ΜΕΞΙΚΟ 1810 - 2010. ΑΓΚΟΥΣΤΙΝ ΛΑΣΟ

Agustín Lazo Adalid (b. Mexico City, 1896 – Mexico City, 1971) was a Mexican artist, scenic painter, costume designer and dramaturg. He is considered as pioneer of surrealism in Mexican art by many art researchers.
Lazo came of notable Mexican families on both' sides. He visited the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, and got his paint training at open-air painting school Escuela al Aire Libre de Pintura in the Santa Anita quarter, Iztapalapa, which was founded by Alfredo Ramos Martínez in 1913. Together with Rufino Tamayo, Julio Castellanos and Gabriel Fernández Ledesma he visited the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes after 1917. During this time he assisted Saturnino Herrán. In 1922 he travelled to Europe for his first time, where he visited museums in France, Italy, Germany and Belgium, and mingled with people of the avantgarde movement there. Meanwhile he returned to Mexico, where he exhibited in 1926, before he moved to Paris, where he lived from 1928 to 1930 once more. Obviously European painting influenced his work until the mid 1940s. His style of theater works is often compared with Celestino Gorostiza's style. Lazo was member of the "Grupo sin Grupo" of the Los Contemporáneos. As scenic painter and costume designer he worked in Mexico City at the Ulises experimental theater and at the Orientación theater, as well as in Chihuahua at the Teatro Hidalgo. He taught painting at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado "La Esmeralda" and at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes.

Lazo was lover of the poet and playwright Xavier Villaurrutia. After Villaurrutia's death Lazo stopped painting and writing. Posthumously his paintings where exhibited in the Museo Nacional de Arte in 1982. (en.wikipedia.org)